Roger Blench (2016) notes that the Talodi and Heiban branches share many typological similarities, but few lexical similarities. Blench (2016) considers Talodi and Heiban to each be separate, independent
Niger-Congo branches that had later converged due to mutual contact. Talodi and Heiban had each constituted a group of the
Kordofanian branch of Niger–Congo that was posited by
Joseph Greenberg (1963); Talodi has also been called Talodi–Masakin, and Heiban has also been called Koalib or Koalib–Moro.
Roger Blench notes that the Talodi and Heiban families have the
noun-class systems characteristic of the
Atlantic–Congo core of Niger–Congo, but that the
Katla languages (another putative branch of Kordofanian) have no trace of ever having had such a system, whereas the
Kadu languages and some of the
Rashad languages appear to have acquired noun classes as part of a
Sprachbund, rather than having inherited them. He concludes that the Kordofanian languages do not form a genealogical group, but that Talodi–Heiban is core Niger–Congo, whereas Katla and Rashad form a peripheral branch (or perhaps branches) along the lines of
Mande. The Kadu languages may be
Nilo-Saharan. }} }} }} }} }} }} }} }} }} • † = extinct
Lafofa (Tegem), sometimes classified as a divergent Talodi language, has a different set of cognates with other Niger–Congo and has been placed in its own branch of Niger–Congo.
Norton & Alaki (2015) Norton & Alaki (2015: 76, 126) classify the Talodi languages as follows. Proto-Talodi, Proto-Lumun-Torona, and Proto-Narrow Talodi have also been reconstructed by Norton & Alaki (2015). }} }} ==Relationship==